Disabled mother wins battle of Trafalgar Square

Artist Marc Quinn stands beside a scale model of his sculpture, Alison Lapper Pregnant, which will take its place in London's Trafalgar Square early next year. Photo: Reuters

Disabled or not, some might profess modesty at the prospect of being sculpted - naked and pregnant - from marble and placed on the most famous empty plinth in the most famous square in Britain. But not Alison Lapper.

The 38-year-old whose 4.6-metre likeness by sculptor Marc Quinn has been chosen to stand in Trafalgar Square next year was cock-a-hoop at the decision on Monday.

With controversy raging over the choice, Ms Lapper said: "It's brilliant. I hope a million people will look at me and maybe change their minds and say: 'Yes, she's beautiful.' It's a triumph for disability."

Fighting talk is stock in trade for Ms Lapper, 1.2 metres tall and a single mother, who was born with no arms and shortened legs as a result of phocomelia, a congenital condition.

Quinn's model for the sculpture - which will stand for 12 months alongside stone lions in the square named after Admiral Horatio Nelson's historic victory - was eight-months pregnant at the time.

"Nelson's Column is the epitome of a phallic male monument and I felt that the square needed some femininity," Quinn said.

When Ms Lapper was six weeks old she was sent away by her mother to a home where she lived until she was 17. As a child Ms Lapper was made to wear prosthetic arms and legs but she hated them and abandoned them when she grew up. She has since become a successful artist, and awarded an MBE. Her son, Parys, is now four.

Her likeness will be the first of a rolling series of contemporary art works to be erected on the empty plinth.

But the work has its critics, among them Julie Kirkbride, the Tory culture spokeswoman.

"Whilst childbirth is a great thing to celebrate, I think we should have focused on individuals of great achievement the nation ought to commemorate," she said.

Ms Lapper responded: "It's quite controversial to have a naked, pregnant, disabled woman in Trafalgar Square and I am sure that there are people who won't like it, and who'll say she should have some clothes on.

"What I'd say to them is that it's about time you opened your hearts and your minds and started being generous. I work, I pay tax, I support myself."